If you're a fashion design student considering incorporating live animals in your show, it's crucial to be mindful of their role in the presentation. While having a model walk down the runway with a pet, like your dog on a leash, may seem harmless, integrating living animals into designs, as demonstrated by Undercover's Jun Takahashi's recent vicissitudes regarding butterflies, requires thoughtful consideration.
Takahashi recently issued an apology for featuring live butterflies in his terrarium dresses during the Spring/Summer 2024 runway show in Paris. Serving as a reflection on death and mourning, the strapless dresses with luminous skirts integrated small landscapes with flying butterflies, serving as a tribute to the designer's lost loved ones.
The butterflies held personal significance for Takahashi, symbolizing a comforting encounter with a white butterfly along a river after his grandmother's funeral 20 years ago. The butterfly appeared by his side, making him "very happy" and reassuring him of her closeness. Since then other similarly evocative experiences with the insects followed, so the butterflies had an important meaning for him.
Despite releasing the butterflies in a park after the show, Takahashi realized he may have made a mistake trapping the butterflies in his dresses. Besides, concerns were raised by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) about the ethical sourcing and treatment of the butterflies.
In a letter to the designer, PETA explained that capturing butterflies often involves practices that harm them, such as being ripped from nature or bred on farms. Many butterflies suffer injuries or die during shipping in envelopes or small boxes, leading wedding planners to avoid their use due to the high likelihood of receiving them dead or in poor condition. Releasing them in a park immediately after the runway show wasn't a great solution either because, according to PETA's letter, captive-bred butterflies "struggle to find food sources, and rarely survive" in the wild, and can also "spread disease to local insect populations."
Research emphasizes that butterflies, like many insects, play a vital role in the ecosystem: they possess gentle and curious characteristics, contributing to the balance of nature. However, urbanization and pollution pose significant threats to their populations.
Upon learning about the potential harm caused to the butterflies, Takahashi expressed regret in a letter to PETA and explained that his team had sourced them from an ethical breeder, provided proper nutrition, ample space, and maintained suitable conditions. Yet, at the end of the show he realized he had made a mistake and felt guilty, having decided to exploit the butterflies for his own purposes. Acknowledging his mistake, he promised not to use butterflies or other living animals in his creations again, expressing a desire to learn and behave more responsibly. "I hope you will appreciate our good will and please do not hesitate to inform us more on this topic as we want to learn to behave better," he humbly concluded, adding: "I pray that butterflies will come to my side again."
This incident echoes a previous intervention by PETA in 2018 in favor of butterflies, when they persuaded New York department store Barneys to cease using live monarch butterflies for promotional jewelry displays. The store committed to avoiding live insects in future presentations after facing criticism and complaints.
So, remember, it's essential that animals should not be treated as mere props or decorative elements in the fashion industry and, in case you want to use living ones in a shot, always be guided by thoughtful and ethical considerations and, in doubt, contact organizations that may offer you further information, support or clarifications.
To ponder instead on what may happen if you kill a butterfly, check out the story "The King and The Butterfly" on the the Dúchas site (a project by the National Folklore Collection, housed at University College Dublin; dúchas, in Irish Gaelic, means "heritage" or "tradition"). The site features documents collected by children and hundreds of pages of memories of Irish folklife.
The story revolves around a king encountering a butterfly while sitting under a tree. Initially dismissive, he later attempts to harm it, only to witness a transformation into a little fairy. So the king tries to control her by placing her in a cage.
However, she escapes, and the king's subsequent attempts to harm her lead to a series of comical mishaps, orchestrated by the fairy's magical powers. In the end, the king, humbled, meets an unfortunate fate while walking along the river. The moral of the story? Better not mess around with butterflies...
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